‘The ultimate gamers’ mascot’: Sonic the Hedgehog at 35 – from 2D to 3D to a billion-dollar film franchise

Sonic’s creators explain how the speedy scamp has kept on running through generations as an enduring avatar of ‘attitude in the face of adversity’ One day in the early 1990s, I came home from university for the weekend and discovered that my dad had bought himself a Sega Mega Drive, bundled with a copy of Sonic the Hedgehog 2. I knew about Sega’s mascot of course. The launch of the original Sonic the Hedgehog game in 1991 was a landmark moment for the company, massively boosting the sales of its 16bit console in the west, ripping market share from the dominant Super Nintendo. While Mario was t